Stora Alvaret is a defining landscape in the sequence in which Pirjo Abanshamash Dumuzi tries to kill Wanda Phinn and later conceals her body. First invoked as a destination and as part of Pirjo’s account of Öland’s past, the terrain becomes a practical instrument of violence: its edge threatens a fatal fall, its wet ground complicates Wanda’s escape, and its deep puddles provide concealment for her grave.

Setting and Landscape

The location is introduced from a high vantage point above cultivated fields in the lowlands. From there, the view extends west toward settlements along both shores of the Kalmar Strait, including Kalmar, where Wanda has recently arrived from. Pirjo points across the highway to Stora Alvaret, placing the open landscape within a wider view of farmland, water, and settlement rather than presenting it as an isolated wilderness.

Pirjo describes the area as formerly fertile pasture, claiming that heavy use by peasants and their cattle had depleted it. She uses that history to frame Öland as a place shaped by a failure to cooperate: in her telling, inhabitants had to leave to escape hunger because they could not work together to feed themselves. The account gives the landscape a human history of cultivation and loss, but in the scene it also serves Pirjo’s immediate purpose. Her talk keeps Wanda’s attention on the ground and scenery while she maneuvers her toward danger.

Later, as the pair move toward a nature reserve, Pirjo names the areas to either side of their route as Mysinge Alvar and Gynge Alvar, saying that Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi is probably in that direction. The specific place names make her explanation sound credible to Wanda. The landscape therefore carries two kinds of orientation at once: it is physically divided into named areas, and it is mapped for Wanda through the possibility of finding Atu.

The Attempt on Wanda

At the overlook, Pirjo draws Wanda toward the edge and turns her to face the landscape across the highway. She then grabs Wanda’s arm and continues speaking about the failure of people to share resources. Wanda appears calm, and Pirjo judges that the deserted highway gives her an opportunity. As she speaks, Pirjo pulls Wanda’s arm and drives her hip into Wanda’s lower back.

The shove initially works as intended: Wanda’s upper body tips backward, and she flails with her free arm. She takes a step back without finding secure footing. The drop among vegetation, stumps, and large rocks could cause a fatal fall; Pirjo also has a spade as a possible means of finishing the attack if the fall does not kill Wanda. Stora Alvaret’s edge thus turns Pirjo’s scenic lecture into cover for an assault, with the danger arising from the precise ground Wanda is being asked to look at.

The attack does not settle the matter. Later, Pirjo tells Wanda that they are nearing the reserve and again points toward where Atu might be. Wanda initially reads Pirjo’s manner as uncertainty about how to get rid of her, but when she sees Pirjo’s face clearly, she understands that the threat is deliberate. She runs. The ground becomes swampy beneath her, and she hopes the wet earth might impede Pirjo’s scooter; instead, the sound of the scooter signals that Pirjo is only a few metres behind. The landscape that had offered Wanda a possible obstacle to pursuit gives her no reliable escape.

Concealment and Aftermath

After Wanda’s murder, Pirjo reviews the crime and focuses on whether the body or traces of her actions might be discovered. She believes the naked woman’s body has been left in a remote place where it is unlikely to be found. The remoteness of the Alvaret is therefore not merely atmosphere: it is part of Pirjo’s calculation about the chances of detection.

Pirjo has buried the body beneath the soft ground under the deepest of the puddles in the Alvaret. She has dug deeply enough that a downpour will not expose the grave, and she has erased tracks that might draw a botanist or tourist away from the beaten path and toward it. She also believes nobody saw her in the area or as she drove away. Her checklist-like review turns the terrain into a sequence of concealment problems—depth, rain, tracks, passers-by—and shows how deliberately she tries to make the landscape absorb evidence of the killing.

Narrative Significance

Stora Alvaret changes function as the scene unfolds. From the high ground, it is first a view across the highway and the subject of Pirjo’s historical explanation. At the edge, its slope and scattered vegetation make it a potential means of killing Wanda. During the pursuit, swampy ground appears to offer resistance to the scooter but cannot guarantee safety. Finally, soft earth and deep puddles allow Pirjo to hide the body and anticipate heavy rain without fearing that the grave will be uncovered.

This progression links the visible landscape to what it conceals. Pirjo speaks of past failures to use fertile land cooperatively while using the present landscape to isolate Wanda and hide her murder. Stora Alvaret’s narrative importance lies in that contrast: the same terrain that offers a broad view becomes, at ground level, a dangerous route and then a burial place.